The Proud Boys are Dangerous - Know Your Fash

content warning this episode is all about a far-right extremist group in case you couldn't tell from the title so if you're sensitive to discussions about violence or hate speech this might be a difficult watch for you fascists we talk a lot about them on the left they're the biggest assholes in the world and we tend to paint them with kind of a broad brush we tend to think of fascists as all thinking the same behaving the same and more or less being simple to recognize ironically however given the fascist tendency to despise diversity there's a wide-ranging diversity of thought among different fascist groups if we expect all fascists to act alike that allows fascists that act differently to operate unnoticed welcome to know your fash where we take a closer look at a specific group of fascists to see what makes them goose step it's my hope that by shining a light on these creeps we can understand how they think and operate a little better so that we're more equipped to fight them than anyone else they inspire to put it simply fascism is authoritarian and xenophobic paleo ultranationalism that's a lot of highfalutin words to throw at you so let me just explain it even simpler a fascist believes the following their national ethnic or racial identity is superior to all others at one point their national or religious group was at the height of its power and are now in decline due to corrupting degenerative influences therefore in order to regain their power they must return to the old ways the world is a stage of perpetual conflict in which the strong destroy the weak therefore strong and usually dictatorial leadership is needed to return their society to its full glory now these aren't the only things a fascist might believe these are just the bare bones criteria i'm using here to explain who i consider to be a fascist i bring up my definition ahead of time because often when you discuss fashions on the internet people will get really weird about it and accuse you of calling anyone you dislike a nazi or they'll be like who gets to decide who is or is not a fascist i don't know i don't have any legal ability to declare someone a fascist i can only give you what i think a fascist is and why i think a group meets that definition and i'm doing this in the spirit of good faith though i find fascism contemptible i'm not using it in a derogatory sense i'm using it in a descriptive sense i'm not calling these people fascists because i disagree with them i disagree with them because i think they're fascists and i'm not speaking colorfully i'm not exaggerating to make a point nor am i accusing anyone of secretly and deliberately emulating hitler or mussolini they just meet the criteria that i outlined something else to keep in mind fascists will lie about what they believe they'll tell whoever they're speaking to whatever story makes them appear most sympathetic and reasonable often they'll claim to be tolerant and non-violent lovey-dovey types but their actions will often contradict this which is why you can't just listen to what they say you have to look at what they do so with those disclaimers out of the way let's move on to today's subject the proud boys the proud boys are the brainchild of vice magazine co-founder gavin mcginnis which perhaps explains the embarrassing hipster bullshit that permeates the whole organization they're called the proud boys as an allusion to a song from disney's aladdin proud of your boy which is ironic given how much the proud boys hate muslims like aladdin they have a little uniform a black fred perry polo shirt with yellow piping their initiation rituals include getting beaten up while reciting the names of breakfast cereals cheerios they're strongly discouraged from jerking off and have weird prescriptive beliefs about how and when masturbating is acceptable i'm not kidding when i say their rules include the idea that if a man is to not it must be within one yard of a woman i again i cannot stress enough that none of this is a joke i'm making at their expense the nut rules the cereal thing even the way gavin mcginnis dresses like a victorian barber are all entirely sincere and i want to pause here because hearing this it's easy to think of these guys as frivolous these rules sound funny and quirky and maybe bro-ish but ultimately harmless and a lot of that is very deliberate they want you to think that they're just goofy oddballs this is a tactic a lot of the far-right uses in their public-facing communication have you ever wondered why the clan uses such silly names for its leadership structures calling people grand wizards or imperial cyclopses or lopsided jabberwockies or whatever they did that at the time so that the clan's formation could be written off as a joke you know and it just kind of stuck around through inertia this schrodinger's joke strategy lets you say whatever you want and then decide later after people have had a chance to react whether or not you actually meant it it creates a malleable truth that keeps those who practice it from ever having to answer for the things that they say the proud boys are a western chauvinist club for men with chapters in the united states canada the uk and australia they don't use the word chauvinist to mean to be disdainful of women though to be clear they certainly are and they think women are lazy less intelligent and should be subservient to men they use it in the sense of feeling or displaying aggressive or exaggerated patriotism towards quote western culture as they are fond of saying they believe that west is best you might say that they consider their national ethnic or religious identity superior they claim to be conservative libertarians but paradoxically seem to fucking love donald trump the police and military officially the proud boys do not describe themselves as a white supremacist or white nationalist organization they allow membership to men of color for example so long as they will admit that white people aren't the problem in fact the proud boys split with the alt-right which they initially considered themselves to be an explicit part of was framed around the group's focus on race rather than western values which you know it's just a wishy-washy way of saying white people stuff now perhaps some of the less savvy proud boys actually believe that this is a distinction worth noting but it seems to me it's pretty obvious that the browboy's outward condemnation of white supremacy is a marketing tactic a way to repackage white nationalist talking points to people who might find them objectionable if stated too directly it's just public relations you know they're founded by a guy who's pretty good at marketing despite their insistence that they're definitely not a hate group no siri bob they do seem very comfortable associating with virtually every far-right group on the planet up to and including neo-nazis and the clan and a proud boy helped organize the unite the right rally in charlottesville you remember that the nazi rally for nazis and he went on gavin mcginnis's podcast to promote it and gavin mcginnis encouraged people to go but not to wear their little prom boy polo shirts and then later after it became clear that everybody knew that it was a nazi thing a nazi rally for nazis they kicked that guy out of the proud boys said he was never really a proud boy and said anybody who went to the rally would be disavowed but now the guy who runs the organization admits that he himself went to the rally so i don't know seems like they're willing to adapt what they claim to stand for based on where the wind is blowing it's also worth noting that the announcement of the creation of the proud boys was in taki's magazine not a magazine for the trashy snack food it's a publication that's hosted articles from the likes of richard spencer and jared taylor and gavin mcginnis the guy who started the whole thing but eventually distance himself from the organization once the legal consequences were made clear to him is definitely categorically a white supremacist he believes in biological iq disparities between races here's a piece he wrote for the publication american renaissance where he was cited as one of the quote race realists invited to imagine the future of american race relations also invited richard spencer jared taylor and paul gottfried the guy who literally coined the term alt-right i don't dislike minorities i hate white liberals and the good news is their days are numbered the myth of diversity is our strength is contingent on nobody trying it when we're all forced to live side by side we'll quickly realize we are incompatible and agree to disagree the blind utopians at the new york times will be crushed and the rest of us realists will be dancing in the streets the white liberal ethos tells us blacks aren't at mit because of racism they say blacks dominate the prison population for the same reason they insist america is a racist hellhole where people of color in scare quotes have no future this does way more damage to black youth than the kkk when you strip people of culpability culpability for what what the fuck you talking about and tell them the odds are stacked against them they don't feel like trying white liberals make this worse by then using affirmative action to correct society's mistakes when blacks are forced into schools they aren't qualified for they have no choice but to drop out instead of going back a step to a school they can handle they tend to give up on higher education entirely thanks to the marxist myth of ubiquitous equality this mismatch leaves blacks less educated than they would have been had they been left to their own devices so just a couple things to note there first holy shit that's one of the most racist paragraphs i've ever read in my life second of all when uh far-right guys say that oh that no we're not racist we're just anti-communist or anti-marxist you should pick up on the secret code where they believe that the idea that the races are equal is itself a marxist idea that's not to say that everybody who's anti-communist dorante marxist is necessarily racist but racists definitely use it as a way to disguise their hateful beliefs and i hope i don't have to explain to anyone in my audience or anyone who's here for the first time that the idea that black people don't make it into higher education as often as white people because their inferior minds just can't handle it might be just to scooch prejudice just a little and i know that he thinks black people are in general less intelligent than white people because in the very same article he defends charles murray's discredited racist tome the bell curve with quite possibly the most bad faith interpretation of statistics i have ever seen quote a common misconception of the book is that it purported blacks are stupid and we are all incompatible and i just want to pause here and point out that the whole point of this article is literally about how white people and black people are incompatible and black people are stupid like it opens with a story about how black people and white people just naturally don't want to hang out together and he says like black people don't make it into college because they're dummies so weird that he's being defensive about people making those claims about charles murray instead the book makes it quite clear you have to start with a blank slate when you meet someone because it's quite possible he will not fit the stereotype doesn't mention there it's a stereotype that murray creates there's a giant overlap in iq tests and thousands of asians are dumber than thousands of blacks and thousands of blacks are smarter than thousands of asians you'd be a fool to assume you weren't dealing with one of those thousand from these groups in that sense it's an anti-racist book all of this is written directly above a diagram allegedly demonstrating the bell curve maps of the iq of various races and okay yes gavin you're right that the book doesn't argue that literally every black person is dumber than every white person or east asian person it argues that in general black people are dumber than white people and east asian people even if murray thinks it would be hasty to make assumptions about individuals based on that trend mcginnis is essentially arguing that this book can't be racist because it allows for the possibility that any individual minority might be one of the good ones and if you think i'm taking him out of context you can read the whole article in the description below but you don't really need to because i've read most of it here in this video there's not really any exculpatory context there but feel free to check it out if you don't believe me mcginnis is also wildly islamophobic and i don't even need to prove that one he just straight up admits it i'm not a fan of islam i think it's fair to call me islamophobic got me there guys i'm an islamophobe what can i say don't like muslims before the record i can prove it he argues that muslims are inbred violent monster people giving examples of how muslims in middle eastern despotic theocracies oppress women and throw gay dudes off of buildings evidently failing to note that those women and gay dudes are also themselves muslim he seems to think that like all muslims in the west are sleeper agents lying in wake to enact sharia law well in fact and and i have this on pretty good authority actually muslims are normal people that have a different religion weird how he doesn't judge all christians by the dominionist fundamentalists arguing we should stone gay people and force women back into the kitchen probably because those people are his buddies probably more than a few of them are proud boys moving on hey remember this guy kyle chapman the so-called based stick man boy it's just we have to take all of these people seriously the guy who dressed in silly cosplay and beat the shit out of anti-fascist activists with a big stick he had that guy who's also an explicit white nationalist by the way alongside august invictus hey everybody this is editing matthew from the future just wanted to let you know that i did call this guy august invictus when his name is actually augustus invictus so i'm going to keep calling him that throughout the video but that's not his name it's augustus a holocaust denying proponent of eugenics who actually look before i before i try to explain who this guy is let me just quote from the proud boys article on the southern poverty law center's website mcginnis welcomed invictus onto his show on july 28 2017 where the conversation repeatedly dipped into invictus interest in armed revolution he explained he'd fallen out with his fellow attorneys because they took offense to his suggestions that maybe lawyers should be hanged in a revolution yeah i wonder why they took that to heart people are so sensitive these days you can't even tell them that you want to hang them in an armed revolution without them getting uppity with regard to journalists he continued i'll tell them you're the first ones that are going to be hanging from a lamppost in the event of a revolution mcginnis only nodded along and in response offered up his own frustrations with liberal journalists now in case he didn't catch that he's invoking the turner diaries here i made a video about that you can go watch if you're unfamiliar but he's alluding to a part of the book where in the midst of a white nationalist exterminationist revolution race traders are killed on mass in the day of the rope so called because they're all hanged from lampposts then comes the day of the rope where they round up all race traders and hang them race traders are everyone who is married outside of their race been too supportive of people outside of the race or you know just sold a home to someone outside of their race or just random people they find on the street because as the book notes it's kind of impossible to avoid hanging some innocent people but that's just something you gotta do turner opines that for political terror to be effective it has to be arbitrary to keep people afraid that they could be the next victim also by the way the proud boy's lawyer james van dyke who issued a cease and desist letter to the southern poverty law center over this article claiming that the proud boys do not now nor have they ever espoused white nationalist white supremacist anti-semitic or alt-right views was also a big fan of the turner diaries as police discovered when they raided his college dorm because at the time he was part of a racist skinhead group and found a copy of the turner diaries and a copy of the protocols of the learned elders of zion anyway i'm getting off track here with all the coincidences that just keep piling up my point was that these two guys kyle chapman and august invictus were given the explicit blessing of gavin mcginnis to create a paramilitary wing of the proud boys called the fraternal order of alt knights or fuck fuck me and i got to tell you i don't really know what the difference is between the paramilitary wing and the regular proud boys because violence is already a key aspect of the proud boys world view and practice there are four levels of proud boy initiation with four tasks to be completed like in a video game two of them require violence number one declare yourself a proud boy and say the words i am a western chauvinist and i refuse to apologize for creating the modern world number two get the shit kicked out of you while reciting the names of five breakfast cereals in order to prove you don't get flustered in a fight because of how much fighting you're going to have to do because they love to fight they're fighting all the time number three get the hipster ass proud boy tattoo with the goofy ed hardy ass font and four get into a fight with an anti-fascist activist or somebody else at a rally or get arrested or something it's wishy-washy they just say you have to make a sacrifice and those are the examples they go with which may explain why virtually anywhere hate speech is being spoken to a crowd the proud boys show up to provide free security everyone from patriot prayer to identity europa to pagita all of them can count on the proud boys to show up and pick a fight with counter protesters i've personally watched them circle around disabled activists like vultures waiting for them to be alone and undefended they're the only fascists i've ever met in my life where i thought to myself oh shit i am about to get my ass kicked for real thankfully though in those situations i was surrounded by tougher people who they didn't want to fuck with had it been just me they absolutely would have just kicked my ass they also have a habit of doxing and threatening online critics you know vic berger the guy who makes surrealist edits of political figures he made a video criticizing gavin mcguinness by showing the things that gavin mcginnis says because it's not wrong big fucking is he called zeke and then he was sent an internal document from an anonymous tipster that alluded to threatening burger and his relatives quote let's get the social media profiles phone numbers and addresses for their bosses mothers fathers brothers sisters boyfriends friends and get to work let's show them there are consequences end quote weeks later one of them showed up to his doorstep told him his videos were hurting the proud boys and he needed to stop so just you know if i mysteriously disappear in the next few weeks you know why just kidding i'm irrelevant i hope so just to sum up here in case anyone is having trouble putting this complicated web of fascist bullshit together the proud boys were founded by an avowed race realist and islamophobe constantly hobnobs with white nationalist groups including the clan welcomed with open arms the guy who planned the unite the right rally until it became politically inconvenient is staffed by people with intimate knowledge of racist extremist literature for some reason whose paramilitary wing founded and led by a violent white nationalist criminal literally named themselves after the alt-right expects us to believe that they're not in any way racist or associated with the alt-right and given all of this given the enormous body of proof demonstrating that they are indeed a white nationalist alt-right aligned group or at least a group sympathetic to those interests one would have to ask why hide it why maintain this implausible deniability this is one of the preferred strategies of the far right entry-ism you change your messaging in public to downplay your more extreme beliefs in the hopes of attracting moderates in some cases you can use dog whistles to signal to other people more in the know what you really mean without turning away people who are as of yet not sufficiently radicalized to accept your more unorthodox positions this is why a lot of alt-righters put such an emphasis on dressing respectably and hiding their power levels jesus christ these people are so embarrassing entrism isn't specific to the far right by any means anyone might do it the far right the far left religious groups sales people people who want you to watch jojo's bizarre adventure in fact i put on a dress shirt and glasses because i thought this was an important subject and i wanted to appear like like a smart guy but the far right love it because it gives them access to spaces that they would be denied if they were honest with potential recruits that's why they lie so much it's not just because they're bad duplicitous people though obviously that's a part of it it's a tactical concern they know that most people are vehemently against ideas like white supremacy or outward expressions of hate except against muslims which depressingly it seems you don't even need to hide that and even if someone is totally on board with racism thinks racism is the bee's knees they also know that there's a social cost to admitting it out loud you could lose friends you could lose loved ones you could lose your job you could be kicked out of your church who knows but if you can just sow that little bit of doubt everyone will be willing to look the other way no matter how much evidence keeps piling up don't believe me read the comments to this video and see all the credulous weirdos who post shit like lol imagine thinking the proud boys are fascist or proud boys aren't fascist anti-fascists are fascist i've gotten this mocking scandalized reaction to virtually every far-right figure or group i've ever talked about no amount of evidence is sufficient to demonstrate that a person or group is fascist to some people if they just insist that they're not no matter how racist no matter how popular people will tell you oh the alt-right doesn't like those guys if you spent any time around the alt-right they tell you they hate that guy and the thing you have to understand is that there's no singular body of alt-right which can be neatly divided from the rest of the political spectrum there are multiple groups of alt-right types who all have exhausting beefs with one another and all pretend to disavow the actions of the others to present themselves as the reasonable middle ground between all-out neo-nazis and normal boring non-genocidal conservatives i can see how people might think this way about some of the more mainstream alt-right figureheads like jordan peterson but it seems to also happen with guys like stone toss or sargon or even fucking richard spencer the guy who invented the alt-right and it baffles me how naive people can be about this subject the proud boys are a decentralized organization of fascist thugs committed to violence in the streets against their political enemies critics politicians and whichever minority groups they're scapegoating at the time there is a worrying historical precedent for this the brown shirts while the proud boys are deeply pathetic and some of their beliefs and practices are laughable it's a deadly mistake to not recognize the very real danger that they pose now if you'll excuse me i'm gonna go jerk off because nobody's stopping me one of the benefits of not not being a fasho complete freedom over jerking off at your leisure not like on the bus but when you're home by yourself go for it cool ending to that video i just did uh i'm not gonna do an eyeball zone this week everybody because this type of video tends to invite a very vitriolic response from fascists so i didn't really think it was fair to expose someone to that in the eyeball zone so as per the protocol i will do two next week i just yeah i don't feel comfortable putting other people at risk in that way i mean i don't know if there is a real risk maybe i'm being paranoid but you know just indulge me in this one if you like this video hit the like button and subscribe for more videos every 12 p.m eastern standard time on fridays if you'd like to see more videos from me you can follow me on youtube.com scaredycatstv where i review horror movies or youtube.com megaslime zone where i play video games if you feel so inclined you can also donate to my patreon at patreon.com thoughtslime it helps me make videos like this because this one's probably not getting monetized you can also catch me streaming every week on thursdays at 8pm eastern standard time here on youtube and on twitch my advice to you the listener probably don't join any fascist street gangs that's a bad idea that's no good you

Channel: Thought Slime

Views: 490,147

Rating: 4.4761076 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: pZMWQDvZQZs

Length: 26min 1sec (1561 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 18 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Johnchuk]

If loving thought slime is wrong I dont want to be right.

[u/[deleted]]

I always see people on here bring up the dildo thing to criticize Gavin McInnes, rather than his repeated endorsements of violence. I know reddit threads bias in favor of jokes and one-liners, but it's disappointing that so many people see him as just some clown.

White America just wants to pretend that people like the Proud Boys and their ridiculous beliefs are some fringe outsiders, rather than a central part of this country's culture.

[u/big_mack_truck]

Solid video, digging the button down shirt + glasses! Definitely has a professorial vibe.

I actually have an old friend who teaches a few PoliSci courses and she got in quite a bit of trouble for playing a segment of Thought Slime's "ACAB" video during a lecture last year (no clue how she thought that would go down well). I can't help but think it would be great to have Thought Slime do guest lectures or even Q&As in colleges someday.

Regarding the Proud Boys rule #4...

"Get into a fight with antifa, or get arrested (or a sacrifice of commiserate perceived value)"

Those clowns almost always choose a "sacrifice of commiserate perceived value" but they insist on keeping "get arrested" in the rule just to appear like they're hard. Contrary to popular belief, hardcore, antagonistic white supremacists like the Proud Boys aren't particularly popular in prison. Their "Proud Boys" tattoos would make it nearly impossible for them to blend in as your average racist in prison and they most definitely would get fucked up at some point, especially since they seem to love running their mouths.

I'm on a bit of a staycation so I think I'm going to waste the weekend and read The Turner Diaries. I'm curious to see what all the fuss is about. I strongly recommend watching Thought Slime's video on the (link here, content warning is there for a good reason-- it is a rather upsetting topic and discussion).

[u/deincarnated]

Fuck these nerds

[u/EnigmaRaps]

INSTASUB

Great content comrade!

[u/SoxxoxSmox]

Thoughtslime has gotta be my favorite breadtuber. Churns out videos like nobody else but all of them are equal parts interesting, fun, and radical(izing)

[u/SawedoffClown]

I wish he would of played the clip of Galvin saying video games are for little children. I actually find that clip to be one of the biggest wedges against the far right, no idea why

[u/[deleted]]

Everyone on the left who can, needs to get their ccw license and take classes in unarmed self defense. While I don’t support violence, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be able to protect yourself or your loved ones if these fucking ghouls attack you. Because you see it here, they like hurting their enemies. These rat-bastards consider it a right of passage.

[u/kampfgruppekarl]

They aren’t dangerous if you aren’t a Marxist looter